341–350 of 876 posts
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I understand that perfectly, how do you think the theoretical Chrome business would make money?
The same way the non-theoretical Firefox business makes money. edit: Safari as well.
Meet the new boss…
Another tame article in The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/25/google_web_environmen... Despite the spec's half-baked state, the blowback last week was swift – in the form of a flood of largely critical comments posted to the WEI GitHub repository, and abuse directed at the authors of the proposal. The Google devs' response was to limit comment posting to those who had previously contributed to the repo…
Limiting posting and asking for civility is the only way for individuals to meaningfully engage with even a mere thousand others. Nothing about the human mind was meant for social internet at the scale of the internet, where there are more distinct voices than you have heartbeats in a lifetime.
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WEI turns non-compliant browsers into second-class citizens. You’re perfectly free to use whatever compliant browser engine and OS combo you like today – but in a world with WEI, you’ll have to use Approved Chrome on an Approved OS on Approved Hardware with Approved Signing Keys, or you won’t be able to sign into your bank.
isn't this good? banks can raise security while we can still use any browser to check hackers news! or this 3 cows story?
This is bad as a user story if you are not blessed and get likely locked out because the web operator doesn’t recognize you as valid
This is worse in the second order effects in that it can be leveraged to fight against ad blockers, paywall bypassers, YouTube video downloaders, and so on, by forcing all those user-friendly software under the umbrella of being unblessed. Hence the moniker of “web DRM”
It is, as always, for your protection. They will shake hands, implement whatever they like.
The road is clear. Chat control, Earn IT act, TPMs, Secure Boots, Cyber Resilience act, Online Safety Bill, Crypto Wars.
Most of the users decide what can happen. Most of the users are blind. The network effect will eventually force everybody to follow.
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Future web will require you to have certified browser - Chrome ™, to access the web. It will require certified OS Windows™, running on trusted Hardware TPM™, running trusted firmware CIA™. You'll have no choice and your love will be mandatory. This won't stop malware of course. However a skull clamp will be installed to monitor your thoughts and you will be zapped if undesirable thoughts are detected. Note: it's a hy…
Can Google really do this? What if I'm using Safari on OS X, or Firefox on Linux?
As for other browsers: I guess that you'd still be able to access my website, but YouTube and GMail will just show you a generic "This browser is not supported" or, at best, "Your browser had been deemed insecure. Please use a secure browser".
If we go full Nostradamus the most likely result is that Safari will play ball (because they are already doing something similar), Firefox will play ball (because they no longer have a spine), they'll implement whatever Google says, and yet another portion of the web will be closed to those who don't dance to Google's tune. I hope you're not too attached to youtube-dl or your adblocker.
Is adding a feature-flag really the same as pushing the feature into the browser immediately? It can easily just be part of a SWE needing the flag in place in order to continue work without impacting anything else, even if that thing never ever launches. In general Google engineers don't tend to work on branches, especially long-running ones. Incremental small code reviews are the expectation. The general process wou…
What you think they push the flag without the intention to make it happen?
Don't underestimate how much money they have to burn and how incompetent upper management is at making hard decisions and planning.
I feel like I have to repeat this, since so much is at stake here, where it is about the preservation of the web as we know it today, at the peril of having it turned into yet another walled garden: The only way around the dystopia this will lead to is to constantly and relentlessly shame and even harass all those involved in helping create it. The scolding in the issue tracker of that wretched "project" shall flow l…
I feel like I have to repeat this, since so much is at stake here, where it is about the preservation of the web as we know it today, at the peril of having it turned into yet another walled garden: The only way around the dystopia this will lead to is to constantly and relentlessly shame and even harass all those involved in helping create it. The scolding in the issue tracker of that wretched "project" shall flow l…
Multiple US states, France, Germany and the UK are going to make the web unnavigable unless you type your credit card number or scan your face for age verification in two out of every three sites.
We are going to need to at least try to create ways to secure those credentials in as zero trust model as possible.
(Note that the legislation is a disaster, but it is done. Nobody paid enough attention. It has passed or will pass in weeks.)
Google depends on Adwords. Other revenue streams are minor in comparison. Chromium is the main moat. Android too, of course. ~$15 billion to Apple is another, so protecting all on mobile. With the demise of AICOA, we cannot hope or expect the EU to deliver. In a sense it's simple; folks have to stop using Google search in order to preserve the web, and support those who are trying to preserve it. But I would say that…
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I hear Firefox is mismanaged all the time, but it seems to be a perfectly fine browser for the most part. I hear all about sites that won’t render in comments on this website, but they must all be internal tools or something because I never encounter them.
Some Google services I regularly depend on (like YouTube and Google Meet) don't work as well on Firefox as they do on Chrome, in ways that actually matter. Besides that I think most websites work fine.